Leveraging Google’s Orkut

The glut of social networking sites can overwhelm your ability to discriminate among them. There are, though, statistics on the big ones that enable anyone to pinpoint their networking goals to demographic targets and geographical areas with at least side-of-the-barn accuracy.

Ecademy was founded by Thomas Powers in Great Britain and is known for a solid European base of members. A recent newcomer to that geo area is multilingual Viadeo having originated in France, it is considered an upcoming competitor to Linkedin for EU professionals.

The most interesting news of late is the Business Week article about Google's plans to expand Orkut, its invitation only social network. The article lamented the fact that Orkut had geographical limitations. Perspective is everything, right? What is one person’s poison is another’s perfume.   

According to Business Week, “…..Asia and Latin America, which account for nearly all of Orkut's 24.6 million monthly users, the site's traffic remains simply anemic—totaling just 600,000 in North America and about 1.2 million in Europe, and not growing very fast.”

This is a problem?

Perhaps for Google it is a business concern but not for recruiters, deal makers, business developers, job seekers and geo-focused networkers who seek contacts in those areas. Orkut is the perfect venue to penetrate Latin American and Asian markets which adds up to about to about 22.6 million potential connections, especially in Brazil.

The old saying goes something like: to catch fish you need to cast your line in water. Same holds true for social networking sites. The idea is to join those sites that most closely target the population that you seek. 

My offer to you to join Orkut.

I was invited to join Orkut when it first started several years ago. If you are interested in networking in Asia and Latin America please add a comment to this post. In return, I will invite you to join Orkut using the email address you left with your comment. Please don’t send me an email, the quid pro quo here is the trade of a comment for an invite.

Comments

[Ming Gong]

Hi Patti, I'm interested to see what Orkut has to offer. I would appreciated if you could send me the invite. Also, is there any business flavored network site that combines both the network aspect and sharing of business knowledge out there? thanks!

Ming

[Richard]

Hi Patty, sounds interesting. Would you forward in invite to me as well? Thank you.

[Frank]

Patti,

I much appreciate the heads up on Orkut and the invitation. I have been wondering about it's value for some time but now I can stop wondering. Tks.

Frank

[Diane]

Thanks for the invite. I would love to join Orkut. Thanks.

[Jeannine Athas]

Hello Patti,
As always, the content you provide is not only valuable but of outstanding quality.
I would like to join you in Orkut.
Best and continued success,
Jeannine